Last updated 2 months ago
Low voter participation, quadratic voting without Sybil protection, and unclear Catalyst dRep guidance risk undermining Catalyst’s decentralization vision
Build an open, reusable framework to guide voters and dReps in making informed, transparent, value-aligned decisions, strengthening decentralization and decision quality in Catalyst
Please provide your proposal title
Project Catalyst dRep Analysis Framework
Enter the amount of funding you are requesting in ADA
59934
Please specify how many months you expect your project to last
12
Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated
No
Original Language
en
What is the problem you want to solve?
Low voter participation, quadratic voting without Sybil protection, and unclear Catalyst dRep guidance risk undermining Catalyst’s decentralization vision
Supporting links
Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?
Yes
Describe any dependencies or write 'No dependencies'
The key dependency is the implementation of a vote delegation feature on Project Catalyst. According to the Project Catalyst Moderation Module, the next deliverables for the Catalyst Voices project also involves the voting delegation feature and recent updates from the Catalyst team suggest that the updates are close to happening in Fund 16. There is still a considerable amount of time between the time I am writing the proposal submission and the possible start of this work, so it is very likely that this feature will already be available when this proposal is approved.
Will your project's outputs be fully open source?
Yes
Please provide details on the intellectual property (IP) status of your project outputs, including whether they will be released as open source or retained under another licence.
All research documentation aassociated content will be made available in public repositories such as GitHub and Gitbook. All documentation will be dispatched under the license Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International.
Please choose the most relevant theme and tag related to the outcomes of your proposal
Governance
Who you’re targeting, how you’ll reach them, and why this matters for Cardano?
Targeting active and prospective Cardano voters, dReps, and governance contributors—addressing concentrated voting power and low unique wallet participation in Project Catalyst. We will reach them via open-access reports, multilingual threads on X, governance forums, and partnerships with community hubs, paving the way for dReps to develop methodologies, criteria, and strategies for proposal selection ahead of key shifts like quadratic voting and delegation—strengthening decentralization, voter confidence, and treasury efficiency.
Provide a list of key activities of your project:
What are your success metrics?
🎯 KPIs
📊 Metrics
Please describe your proposed solution and how it addresses the problem
Addressing Systemic Governance Challenges
This proposal directly addresses two systemic challenges in Project Catalyst governance:
Concentration of voting power among a small set of highly delegated dReps
Low participation of unique wallets and informed voters in funding decisions
As Cardano scales to thousands—and potentially millions—of stakeholders, governance becomes increasingly complex. Perspectives, priorities, and socio-cultural realities differ widely across micro-communities: geographic (e.g., Japan, Africa, LATAM) and interest-based (e.g., DeFi, NFTs, governance). For Catalyst to remain plural, representative, and decentralized, both voters and dReps must have access to tools that enable structured, transparent, and value-aligned decisions.
Our solution is to design, pilot, and disseminate a transparent, community-led governance framework that enables Catalyst voters and Catalyst dReps to filter, evaluate, and prioritize proposals in alignment with their delegators’ interests and the specific priorities of different micro-communities, with solid evaluation criteria, such as accountability, reputation, expertise and planning.
Two Core Purposes
Empower voters to analyze proposals, create informed voting lists, and cast intentional votes.
Guide Catalyst dReps in responsibly assessing and prioritizing proposals to faithfully represent their delegators.
The approach is grounded in real-world community sensing we have already conducted in the Lusophone Cardano community, which led to the creation of the Manifesto Cardano Brasil — a set of community-guided principles now forming part of the foundation of this framework.
Project Structure – Three Core Development Steps
Step 1: Proposals Filtering Framework (PFF)
We will define categories and themes that reflect micro-community priorities and create methods for filtering proposals accordingly. Research will cover:
Strategic relevance (alignment with Cardano’s roadmap and governance goals)
Local impact (regional or cultural significance)
Equity of access (support for underserved communities)
Ecosystem synergy (integration with existing Cardano infrastructure)
Team delivery history (performance data from Milestone & Keychain records)
We will explore filtering strategies such as Catalyst’s native tags, keyword mapping, and AI-assisted classification.
Outputs: methodological documentation and filtering guidelines, published openly on GitBook.
Step 2: Proposals Analysis Framework (PAF)
We will develop structured methods for evaluating Catalyst proposals. Research will:
Compare evaluation models from other ecosystems (e.g., Gitcoin, Optimism RetroPGF, Arbitrum Grants, Thrive Protocol)
Define criteria and weighting strategies
Explore responsible AI integration for scalable, high-quality reviews
Develop reusabolle prompt libraries, review templates, and synthesis workflows
Test low-code tools (e.g., n8n) for automating repetitive review and publication tasks
Goal: a practical, adaptable open guide for Catalyst dReps and voters that leverages AI without compromising analytical depth or fairness.
Step 3: Analysis Dissemination Framework (ADF)
This phase focuses on best practices for sharing proposal analyses, curated lists, and voting rationales in clear, accessible formats.
Channels:
GitBook documentation
Twitter/X threads
YouTube explainers
Medium & forum posts
Telegram updates
Podcast-style recordings
We will also produce an onboarding and educational package:
9 short tutorial videos
7 written guides
2 explanatory articles
Languages: English, Portuguese, Japanese.
Why This Solution Works
This project builds governance literacy, strengthens the link between delegators and dReps, and reduces reliance on voting driven by personal bias or by superficial convenience. By providing clear methodologies and transparent rationales, it increases voter confidence and ensures treasury funds are allocated to proposals that truly reflect community priorities.
It also addresses a key gap: most voters and many dReps lack standardized, scalable ways to assess hundreds of proposals in limited time. Through AI-assisted workflows—combined with human review—we reduce the time and cost per evaluation while maintaining quality and methodological integrity.
Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community
Impact and Benefits to the Cardano Community
This proposal delivers a direct and measurable impact on both voters and Catalyst dReps by providing a clear, transparent, multilingual, and reusable framework for proposal evaluation within Project Catalyst. It addresses the systemic challenges of lower leves of informed participation, concentration of voting power, and lack of standardized methodologies for decision-making—issues that become increasingly critical as Cardano governance scales.
Impact on Voters
For voters, the framework promotes:
Informed decision-making – By offering accessible guides, tutorials, and evaluation tools, voters will have the ability to filter and assess proposals against shared principles and micro-community priorities.
Greater trust in governance – Transparent criteria and consistent methodologies help ensure that voting outcomes are representative and mission-aligned.
Lower participation barriers – The multilingual approach (English, Portuguese, Japanese) and simplified onboarding resources allow non-English speakers and new participants to engage effectively.
By making proposal evaluation simpler, clearer, and more transparent, the framework empowers individual voters to play an active role rather than defaulting to passive delegation.
Impact on Catalyst dReps
For dReps, the framework provides:
Consistent methodology for assessing proposals, ensuring accountability and transparency in representing delegators’ interests.
Alignment with shared values and principles derived from community sensing and the Manifesto Cardano Brasil.
Scalable review capacity through responsible AI-assisted workflows that reduce time and cost per analysis without sacrificing quality.
Stronger communication with delegators via curated lists, documented rationales, and structured reports.
This increases the quality of representation while improving delegator confidence in how their voting power is being exercised.
Alignment with Catalyst Voices and On-Chain Delegation
The framework will complement the Catalyst Voices initiative by providing a practical layer of transparent best practices for both voters and dReps. As Catalyst implements on-chain vote delegation, this framework ensures that delegation is not blind—it is guided by clear, public, and verifiable evaluation processes.
Driving Decentralization and Inclusivity
By structuring and publishing community-driven methodologies, this proposal helps:
Decentralize ADA voting power by making it easier for smaller, underrepresented dReps to demonstrate value and attract delegations.
Amplify the voices of micro-communities (regional and interest-based) by integrating their priorities into the evaluation process.
Prevent overconcentration of influence by empowering a broader range of governance actors with professional-grade tools.
KPIs and Metrics for Measuring Impact
The project’s impact will be tracked through clear, quantifiable KPIs:
Engage at least 20 Catalyst dReps with the framework.
Achieve ₳50M in delegations to framework users.
Reach 200 unique wallets delegating to framework-aligned dReps.
Maintain 80%+ satisfaction rate in user feedback surveys.
Attain an average engagement rate above 4% on X posts (notably high for governance content under 10,000 followers).
Secondary metrics include survey participation rates, growth in community channels, adoption of materials by other governance actors, and replication of the methodology by external groups.
Return on Investment for the Cardano Ecosystem
The ROI for this project is seen in:
Higher legitimacy – More voters and dReps making decisions based on transparent, documented methods.
Better decision quality – Funding directed toward proposals that align with collective priorities and have been critically evaluated.
Broader participation – Lowering entry barriers for non-English speakers and newcomers.
Long-term reusability – Open-source materials and methodologies that can be adopted across multiple Catalyst rounds without additional cost.
Educational and Onboarding Layer
The proposal includes a comprehensive educational package to extend its impact:
9 short video tutorials
7 written guides
2 explanatory articles
All resources will cover topics such as how to vote, how to delegate, and how to apply the framework, and will be published in English, Portuguese, and Japanese. Materials will be reusable and accessible via GitBook, YouTube, Twitter/X, and Telegram.
Alignment with the Cardano 2025 Product Roadmap
Sub-goal: Expand Cardano community participation
This project lowers participation barriers with localized content, inclusive workshops, and incentivized feedback forms, driving onboarding of voters and dReps in underrepresented regions.
Sub-goal: Stabilize Cardano governance post-bootstrapping
The framework creates a shared foundation for proposal evaluation, reducing ambiguity, ensuring methodological consistency, and strengthening governance resilience.
Sub-goal: Improve governance education and communication
We will deliver multimedia, multilingual content to clarify governance processes and encourage informed participation.
Sub-goal: Refine and expand core governance tools via open contribution
All outputs will be open-source and modular, encouraging community co-creation, adaptation, and integration with other governance initiatives.
Long-Term Ecosystem Benefits
By combining open source frameworks, AI-driven efficiency, multilingual accessibility, and public transparency, the proposal creates a scalable governance infrastructure that can evolve alongside Catalyst and the broader Cardano governance landscape. The methodologies, content, and tools developed will remain freely accessible for future governance cycles, creating compounding value over time.
What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?
Leadership and Governance Track Record
The Catalyst dRep Analysis Framework project is led by Rodrigo Pacini, an experienced governance contributor in the Cardano ecosystem with an extensive track record of proposal review, proposals completed with success, challenge setting, and milestone validation. His work has directly shaped funding priorities, treasury oversight, and governance accountability within Project Catalyst since Fund 2.
Proven Delivery Experience
Successfully delivered the Manifesto Cardano Brasil proposal in Fund 10, meeting all deliverables, publishing multilingual outputs, and fulfilling reporting requirements.
Funded proposer for Fund 7 – Cardano Ambassadors & Latin America and Fund 10 – DReps LATAM – Brasil – Exploration & Community Sensing, producing research, workshops, and public engagement on governance (including CIP-1694).
Project manager for DReps LATAM – Brasil, which laid the groundwork for governance research and community sensing in Latin America.
Extensive Governance Roles
Grant Reviewer (Community Reviewer – Level 1) – Reviewed over 1,000 proposals, assessing impact, feasibility, and value for money, providing voters with qualitative rationales to make informed decisions.
Quality Assurance Analyst (Veteran Community Advisor – Level 2) – Moderated over 3,000 peer reviews, ensuring clarity, fairness, and accuracy, while flagging biased or low-quality assessments.
Moderator – Co-developed the widely adopted “Red and Yellow Card Thing” standard for review integrity, improving review quality across at least two Catalyst funds.
Milestone Reviewer (since Fund 11) – Validated 100+ Proofs of Achievement (PoAs) and Statements of Milestones (SoMs) for funded projects, directly influencing treasury disbursements by enabling or blocking payments based on delivery evidence.
Challenge Setting and Funding Impact
Authored/co-authored 9 approved Challenge Settings across multiple funds, collectively mobilizing nearly $3 million USD in Cardano Treasury funding.
These challenges seeded or scaled some of Cardano’s most impactful projects and infrastructure, including:Minswap, Liqwid, Spectrum Labs, Mlabs, Indigo, Charli3, Ledger Live Integration, Yoroi, TxPipe, Lucid, Ogmios, Cexplorer, Adapools, Socious, LATAM Town Hall, ALDEA DAO, Catalyst Swarm, Catalyst School, and many others.
Active Governance Leadership
Active dRep since early 2025 with over 40 on-chain votes cast and fully documented rationales published on GitHub for public accountability.
Lead of the Agora Research Bureau, producing governance action reviews, public rationales, and educational threads on governance, all on a voluntary basis prior to this proposal.
Former Cardano Ambassador Moderator with research experience in economics, blockchain, and DeFi since 2018.
Holds a BTech degree in Naval Construction.
Rodrigo’s combination of funded delivery, governance process expertise, and direct influence over multi-million ADA funding priorities establishes a high level of credibility and execution capacity for this proposal. His hands-on involvement in reviewing, moderating, and validating both proposals and milestones ensures that the Catalyst dRep Analysis Framework will be executed with rigor, transparency, and measurable community impact.
Validated Community-Driven Approach
Before submitting this proposal to create the Catalyst dRep Analysis Framework, we deliberately carried out a validation stage through the Manifesto Cardano Brasil initiative. The success of this initiative gave us the confidence to proceed with developing a structured, open-source framework.
Over several months, more than 80 contributors shaped both the Manifesto and the Critical Missions for Brazilian and Lusophone dReps document through public debates on X, surveys, and collaborative writing. These initiatives produced distinct governance guidelines supported by the dozens of members of the Cardano community, advocating for multilingual education, proposal analysis tools, transparency in dRep activities, and culturally inclusive engagement.
The priorities identified in these grassroots processes are now transformed into a practical, open-source framework aimed at empowering both voters and Catalyst dReps. It seeks to onboard more community members into Catalyst, educate them on governance, and improve distributed decision-making—with more voting power exercised by both individual voters and dReps. This framework is not merely a personal concept, but the outcome of a structured, community-confirmed process, validated by active participation and public endorsement.
🔗 https://manifestocardanobrasil.gitbook.io
Beyond this foundation, this proposal directly addresses pressing governance gaps that have fueled visible community dissatisfaction. The concentration of voting power in a small number of actors has enabled highly centralized decision-making, often without publicly shared criteria, transparent rationale, or broad community input. This dynamic has raised concerns about the resilience, inclusiveness, and legitimacy of Catalyst’s governance model, underscoring the urgent need for community-vetted, value-aligned frameworks to guide voting behavior and strengthen trust in the decision-making process.
At the same time, the ongoing **budget proposal revision process and Governance Actions reviews, **under which this proposall was being prepared, has exposed another structural weakness: the scarcity of structured, coordinated, consistent, and publicly documented analysis from most dReps. Despite the critical nature of this moment for shaping Catalyst’s future, only a few dReps have engaged in transparent reviews grounded in shared values or established methodologies. This lack of diligence reveals a systemic gap that this framework is designed to fill.
In essence, this proposal is both a grassroots-driven response to long-standing community priorities and a practical solution to urgent governance shortcomings. Its development is rooted in authentic community voice, while its relevance is reinforced by real-world governance failures that demand immediate, value-aligned intervention.
The Manifesto Cardano Brasil initiative demonstrated strong demand for governance research, transparent methodologies, and multi-language educational outputs, especially in underrepresented communities.
The values embedded in this proposal — structured analysis, multilingual accessibility, open publication, and active governance participation — have already been validated through sustained community engagement and adoption.
Clear Milestone Planning
This proposal contains a Statement of Milestones with explicit deliverables, acceptance criteria, and evidence requirements for each phase:
Proposal Filtering Framework
Proposal Analysis Framework
Analysis Dissemination Framework
The structure mirrors Catalyst’s milestone validation standards, ensuring measurable progress and transparent tracking.
Feasibility & Risk Mitigation
Outputs are modular and adaptable, enabling use across Catalyst proposal reviews, and educational onboarding.
Public repositories on GitHub and GitBook will host all materials, ensuring verifiability, easy access, and open contribution.
Milestone Title
Proposals Filtering Framework(PFF)
Milestone Outputs
Acceptance Criteria
Evidence of Completion
Delivery Month
3
Cost
12000
Progress
20 %
Milestone Title
Proposals Analysis Framework(PAF)
Milestone Outputs
Acceptance Criteria
Evidence of Completion
Delivery Month
5
Cost
12000
Progress
40 %
Milestone Title
Analysis Dissemination Framework(ADF)
Milestone Outputs
Acceptance Criteria
Evidence of Completion
Delivery Month
7
Cost
12000
Progress
60 %
Milestone Title
Research Consolidation, Content creation & Dissemination
Milestone Outputs
Acceptance Criteria
Evidence of Completion
Delivery Month
8
Cost
12000
Progress
80 %
Milestone Title
Content creation & Dissemination and Project Close-Out
Milestone Outputs
Acceptance Criteria
Evidence of Completion
Links to 9 video tutorials published on YouTube and embedded in GitBook;
Written versions of all tutorials and articles published and available on GitBook;
Screenshots and links of social media engagement metrics available on Gitbook;
GitBook sections displaying all content available;
Links of the Project Close-out Report (PDF) and Project Close-out Video publicly available on Github.
Delivery Month
12
Cost
11920
Progress
100 %
Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources
| Subitem | Calculation | Total (USD) | Total (ADA) |
|---------|-------------|-------------|-------------|
| Co-Creation Workshop Hosting | 2h × 2 facilitators × $20/h × 3 workshops | $240 | ₳400 |
| Workshop Preparation | 2h × 2 facilitators × $20/h × 3 workshops | $240 | ₳400 |
| Workshop Report Writing | 3 reports × 4h × $20/h | $240 | ₳400 |
| Framework Research (Filtering / Reviewing / Voting Models) | 240h × $30/h | $7,200 | ₳12,000 |
| Research Report Documentation | 3 reports × 10h × $30/h | $900 | ₳1,500 |
| Team Coordination & Internal Summaries | 30h × $30/h | $900 | ₳1,500 |
| Questionnaire Creation | 3 forms × $300 | $900 | ₳1,500 |
| Questionnaire Report Writing | 3 reports × $350 | $1,050 | ₳1,750|
| Final Framework Documentation | 160h × $30/h | $4,800 | ₳8,000 |
This item of the budget covers the costs associated with the research, workshops, questionnaires, coordination meetings, reports and documentation. The breakdown illustrates the hours assigned to each task for clarity:
2 CONTENT PUBLISHING & CONTENT MANAGEMENT – $4,650 USD / ₳7,750
| Subitem | Calculation | Total (USD) | Total (ADA) |
|---------|-------------|-------------|-------------|
| GitBook Creation Setup | 6h × $25/h | $150 | ₳250 |
| GitBook Publishing & Content Maintenance | 60h × $25/h | $1,500 | ₳2,500 |
This item covers the effort required to publish, format, and maintain written content in the project’s GitBook space. At least 30 documents are expected to be uploaded over the course of the project, including research outputs, educational tutorials, workshop reports, questionnaires, internal documentation, and the reward program ruleset. Additional entries may be included as the project evolves.
| Video Publishing & Content Maintenance | 66h × $25/h | $1,650 | ₳2,750 |
This sub-item covers the effort required to publish and maintain video content across the project’s key platforms—YouTube and X (Twitter). Tasks include uploading finalized videos, creating thumbnails, configuring publishing settings, optimizing metadata (SEO), and embedding or linking content in the project documentation.
| Social Media Channels/Profiles Initial Setup & SEO | 6h × $25/h | $150 | ₳250 |
Configuration of the channel’s structure, branding elements (banner, logo, etc.), basic SEO optimization (channel description, tags, metadata), and setup of relevant sections to ensure discoverability and alignment with Cardano-related content.
| YouTube and X Upload & Maintenance | 4h × 12 videos × $25/h | $1,200 | ₳2,000 |
For each video: upload to YouTube and X, thumbnail creation, SEO (titles, descriptions, tags), playlist setup (YouTube), tagging and formatting (X), and integration into Gitbook documentation.
3 CONTENT CREATION – $2,625 USD / ₳4,375
| Subitem | Calculation | Total (USD) | Total (ADA) |
|---------|-------------|-------------|-------------|
| Educational Video Production & Content Development | 65h × $25/h | $1,625 | ₳2,708 |
This time allocation covers the end-to-end production of nine short, high-quality tutorial videos to support Catalyst onboarding and governance participation. It includes:
Content Preparation: Outlining video structure and gathering relevant examples and materials.
Scriptwriting: Writing concise and clear scripts tailored for educational narration.
Screen Recording & Visual Design: Capturing PC/mobile walkthroughs and adding visual markers (e.g., arrows, highlights).
Video Editing: Applying transitions, music, sound effects, and pacing adjustments.
AI Narration & Avatar Integration: Using Heygen to generate voiceovers and display an avatar for a more engaging viewer experience.
| Catalyst Educational Content – Writing & Editing | (28h + 12h) × $25/h | $1,000 | ₳1,666 |
This item covers the production of 7 educational tutorials and 2 complementary explanatory articles to support the Catalyst dRep Analysis Framework. A professional copywriter will assist in drafting and refining the content using AI tools. Tasks include writing, editing, formatting, and adding visuals when needed.
Each of the 7 tutorials require 4 hours of work, totaling 28 hours for creation.
Each of the complementary explanatory articles will require 6 hours of work, amounting to 12 hours in total.
Rate: $25/hour
4 SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT – $1,020 USD / ₳1,700
| Subitem | Calculation | Total (USD) | Total (ADA) |
|---------|-------------|-------------|-------------|
| Stage 1 (Months 1–11) | 48h × $15/h | $720 | ₳1,200 |
| Stage 2 (Month 12) | 20h × $15/h | $300 | ₳500 |
This item covers the planning and execution of social media activities to maintain community engagement and promote project deliverables across both phases of the proposal. Platforms managed will be at least X (Twitter), Telegram, and YouTube, with tailored copywriting and post formatting to suit each channel’s audience and style.
The scope is divided as follows:
Stage 1 (Months 1–11): Light-touch community interaction during the research and framework development stage. Includes weekly updates, announcements and community support across 48 weeks. We intend to allocate 1 hour of work to manage social media per week, amounting to 48 hours.
Stage 2 (Month 12): Active outreach during the educational content launch, including content promotion, user engagement strategies, announcements, community support and governance activation support across 4 weeks. In this stage we intend to allocate 5 hours of social media management per week, so 20 hours in total.
5 TOOLS & SUBSCRIPTIONS – $800 USD / ₳1,333
| Subitem | Calculation | Total (USD) | Total (ADA) |
|---------|-------------|-------------|-------------|
| Essential software (X Premium, Canva, CapCut Pro, HeyGen, DeepL, Claude, ChatGPT) | $80/month × 10 months | $800 | ₳1,333 |
Essential software tools for content creation, publishing, and AI-based translation and workflows, including X Premium, Canva, CapCut Pro, HeyGen, DeepL, Claude, and ChatGPT.
6 EQUIPMENT – $400 USD / ₳666
| Subitem | Calculation | Total (USD) | Total (ADA) |
|---------|-------------|-------------|-------------|
| One-time purchase to ensure professional audio and video quality for meetings, workshops, content production, and video report recordings. Equipment will be reused for future Cardano-related projects. | Fixed amount | $500 | ₳606.06 |
7 COMMUNITY BOUNTIES – $600 USD / ₳1,000
| Subitem | Calculation | Total (USD) | Total (ADA) |
|---------|-------------|-------------|-------------|
| Incentives for surveys and workshops | Fixed amount | $600 | ₳1,000 |
This budget item covers rewards to encourage meaningful community engagement through structured questionnaires, feedback forms, and participation in workshops. The initiative aims to generate at least 50 completed qualified survey responses across different engagement stages, helping validate the project’s impact and gather actionable insights.
8 TRANSLATION – $5,000 USD / ₳8,333
| Subitem | Calculation | Total (USD) | Total (ADA) |
|---------|-------------|-------------|-------------|
| Translation EN → PT/JP (MTPE) of documents, tutorials, and scripts | Fixed amount | $5,000 | ₳8,333 |
This budget item covers the translation of key project deliverables from English into Portuguese and Japanese, using a hybrid approach: machine translation with expert human post-editing (MTPE). This method ensures both affordability and quality for governance-related and educational materials.
The estimated total volume is approximately 58,320 words per language, distributed as follows:
3 Research Reports (10 pages each, 500 words/page): 15,000 words
Final dRep Analysis Framework Document (30 pages): 15,000 words
7 Written Tutorials (800 words each): 5,600 words
2 Articles (1,200 words each): 2,400 words
9 Video Narration Scripts (Heygen, 1,000 words each): 9,000 words
GitBook Interface & UI Text: 1,320 words
These materials will be translated into both target languages, resulting in an estimated total of 116,640 translated words. At an average rate of $0.04 USD/word, the total cost is $4,665.6 USD, rounded to $5,000 USD to accommodate minor revisions or additional localization needs.
9 - PROJECT MANAGEMENT – $3,000 USD / ₳5,000
| Subitem | Calculation | Total (USD) | Total (ADA) |
|---------|-------------|-------------|-------------|
| Creation of Milestone Statement (SoM) document | Fixed amount | $300 | ₳500 |
| Proof of Achievement (PoA) | 5 × 8h/PoA × $30/h | $1,200 | ₳2,000 |
| Project close-out report (PCR) | 30h × $30/h | $900 | ₳1,500 |
| Project close-out video (PCV) | 20h × $30/h | $600 | ₳1,000 |
Description:
Funds core management tasks such as Milestones documentation, Proof of Life and Proof of Achievement submissions, and final reporting and close-out video production. These activities ensure transparent delivery tracking, accountability, and alignment with Catalyst’s reporting standards.
10 CONTINGENCY (3.5%) – $4,494 USD / ₳5,447.27
A contingency allocation of 10% is below the average adopted across technology and R&D projects to cover unforeseen adjustments, minor scope shifts or operational inefficiencies that may arise during execution. It aligns with industry standards (such as PMI and academic research projects), where 5–10% is typically reserved for general uncertainty without inflating the budget unnecessarily.
Should this workload not be demanded, the contingency budget will be redirected to enhance the research component of the project, allowing for deeper analysis, more robust validation, or additional community engagement activities.
💰 Total Overall (with contingency): $35,960 USD / ₳59,934
How does the cost of the project represent value for the Cardano ecosystem?
This proposal offers exceptional value for the Cardano ecosystem by combining cost-efficient design, measurable outcomes, and innovative methods—especially through the strategic and responsible use of AI. In addition to delivering a complete research and governance framework, the budget is directly tied to outputs that will remain accessible and reusable for future governance cycles, ensuring that the benefits of this investment extend far beyond the project’s 12-month execution.
The project sets clear KPIs & Impact Goals:
Engage at least 20 Catalyst dReps with the framework.
Achieve ₳50M in delegations to framework users, compared to the pre-project baseline.
Reach 200 unique wallets delegating to those dReps.
Maintain 80%+ approval in user satisfaction surveys.
Attain an average engagement rate above 4% on X posts (which is considered a high rate for profiles under 10,000 followers covering governance and blockchain topic).
Cost Structure & International Benchmarking
Hourly rates for team members and freelancers were established using reliable global benchmarks from platforms such as Upwork, ZipRecruiter, and Glassdoor. We deliberately set compensation within or below average market rates for the expertise required, ensuring fair payment while maximizing cost-efficiency.
Budget activities and costs are defined with a high level of granularity, underscoring transparent and disciplined resource planning.
Leveraging AI for Efficiency
We incorporate AI-assisted translation (e.g., DeepL) followed by human post-editing. Professional human translation typically costs $0.10–$0.15 per word. Using AI (e.g., DeepL) with human review will reduce the cost to around $0.05 per word—roughly a 50% saving with comparable quality.
We also use AI to accelerate technical writing and research activities, with all outputs reviewed and refined by our team. This integration of AI reduces labor hours while maintaining high standards, producing a measurable cost-per-output efficiency gain and freeing resources for higher-value analysis and community engagement.
Deliverables vs. Cost
Our Statement of Milestones clearly outlines deliverables, criteria, and evidence for each research output, educational content piece, awareness activity, and project management task, enabling predictable, verifiable, and responsible budget tracking.
Long-Term Ecosystem Value
The Research Framework we create offers a replicable methodology for transparent Catalyst proposals filtering and evaluation, adoptable by future Catalyst dReps or individual voters. Delegators gain access to clear, structured, and comparable proposal evaluations, improving decision quality and reducing the risk of uninformed voting.
Infrastructure produced (e.g., documentation, framework, translation libraries) remains open-source, allowing other teams to build upon the outputs without duplicating costs—creating long-term value that compounds over time.
In summary, this proposal ensures excellent value for money by aligning global-standard compensation, AI-driven efficiency, proven methodology, and public transparency to yield governance outcomes that are informed, decentralized, and sustainable. The combination of competitive rates, KPI-driven targets, scalable deliverables, and reusable governance tools results in a tangible and measurable return on investment for the Cardano ecosystem.
I confirm that the proposal is a non-technical initiative, with ≤20% of the budget for tech support.
Yes
I confirm that the proposal provides verifiable evidence (portfolio, links, reports) of the team's ability to deliver the project.
Yes
I confirm that the proposer and all team members are in good standing with prior Catalyst projects.
Yes
I confirm that the proposal includes clear objectives with both Output Metrics (what proposal did) and Adoption-Focused Metrics (what effect proposal had).
Yes
I confirm that the proposal clearly explains the user journey and provides a credible plan for how the project will equip and motivate users for future on-chain activity.
Yes
I confirm that the initiative clearly demonstrates how it will grow the Cardano ecosystem or onboard users.
Yes
I confirm that the project plan and timeline (≤ 12 months) are realistic and well-defined.
Yes
I confirm that the proposal commits to public outputs and justifies any exceptions.
Yes
I confirm that the budget adheres to all policies: it is for future work, follows the merchandise rule, and excludes establishing local treasuries, incentives/giveaways, re-grants.
Yes
I Agree
Yes
**Rodrigo Pacini, Project Manager and Researcher **
Actively involved in Project Catalyst since Fund 2, working as a Veteran Community Advisor, Veteran Proposal Assessor (Level 2 Reviewer), Moderator, and Milestone Reviewer. Since Fund 11, as a Milestone Reviewer, reviewed over 30 funded proposals and more than 100 Proof of Achievement (PoA) and Statement of Milestones (SoM) submissions, contributing directly to the accountability and transparency of Catalyst-funded projects. Funded proposer in Fund 10 and hosted Twitter(X) Spaces for the Manifesto Cardano Brasil project. Project manager for “DReps LATAM – Brasil – Exploration & Community Sensing.” proposal. Mentorship of proposers and contribution to the creation of quality assurance procedures for the review process. Co-creation of the “Red and Yellow Card Thing”, a set of review standards that was officially adopted and used across at least two Catalyst funds during the early moderation phases.
Previously, Cardano Ambassador Moderator. Research in economics, blockchain, and DeFi since 2018. BTech degree in Naval Construction.
I served as one of the representatives responsible for proposal curation in the Distributed Decision-Making category within the Catalyst Representatives Pilot Program organized by the Cardano Foundation. This role allowed me to apply and refine governance-oriented evaluation criteria, engage in structured deliberation with other curators, and observe first-hand how decision-making frameworks impact proposal quality and prioritization. The experience produced a pilot/MVP of the analytical approach that is now being expanded, formalized, and deepened in this proposal.
My curated list related to FUnd 14 is avaikabkle below
https://forum.cardano.org/t/catalyst-representative-pilot-f14/149351/4
https://forum.cardano.org/t/distributed-decision-making-list-of-proposals-endorsed-by-rodrigo/149613
https://x.com/RodrigoPacini/status/1973476574608474152
🔗 Links:
https://linkedin.com/in/rodrigopacini
https://projectcatalyst.io/proposers/rodrigopacini
https://github.com/Rodrigopacini/RodrigoPacini
Eduardo Silka - Governance Researcher
Blockchain Researcher focused on governance, public sector applications, and distributed systems. Master’s student in Public Governance and Planning, with research in blockchain governance, exploring how blockchain reshapes transparency, accountability, and decision-making in government. Architect and Urban Planner, with a thesis on blockchain as a technopolitical tool for smart cities. Associate researcher of iCoLab (Collaborative Institute of Blockchain) and former Intersect associate (Cardano).
🔗 Links: